This Google Glass app can help you ace your next job interview

With all of the sensors in Google Glass(s goog), is it possible to provide some biofeedback that helps in stressful situations? If you have the right application, yes. As part of Twilio’s recent Autism Hackathon, developer Lance Nanek created just such an app, called My Monitor, which provides real-time feedback on your voice and eye level; two key success factors in any interview.

Using an open-source sound analysis app called Audalyzer, Nanek’s Glass app shows current sound levels and speaking tone on a graph in real-time.

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When the software detects a tone or volume outside of certain parameters, a “keep your voice calm” reminder flashes on the Google Glass display. Likewise, Glass wearers will get an on-screen nudge if their eye-level strays too far up or down, helping them to focus on looking at the speaker during an interview.

Nanek originally designed the application for people having to deal with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), which currently affects 1 in 88 children according to Autism Speaks, so this is great project to help a very worthy cause.

It was actually staff from that organization who suggested Nanek’s app could be useful for mock interview training. I wouldn’t think that most job interviewees will show up wearing Google Glass currently, but in the future, as Glass becomes more readily available and widely used, Nanek’s software could become quite useful in that situation.

Just like I would not allow smartphones, laptops etc in a job interview today, I certainly would immediately show the door to anyone wearing a device that can assist them in any way. I have to give credit to the device because I can now easily detect tools without even asking a single question!

Neither sarcasm nor fear. Pulling out your laptop and/or smartphone to check things during an interview (anything: social media, cribnotes for your interview, looking up answers to questions, etc.) is just plain rude and unprofessional.

To some extent, it’s true that I don’t rely upon memorized man pages in judging unix/linux sysadmins (and I look down upon those who do)… so it shouldn’t matter that I expect people to look things up when a document is needed. But the other side of the coin is, when I’m in an interview, I want to know how you think. I don’t want to know, nor care, how fast you can look up a man page, wiki page, etc.

The other major component of an interview, perhaps more so than that one, is I want to know your social skills. Not that I want someone who is going to be “popular”, but I want someone who is going to fit in with the existing team. Someone that will work with them, someone that will coordinate, get along, etc. A bad fit is a bad fit. And hiding behind devices, whether they’re laptops, smartphones, or goggles … all of that undermines the social aspects of a job interview. Starting with: it’s rude and unprofessional.

So, yeah, I agree with the above comment: the main thing you’re doing when you walk into an interview, with me, while wearing google glass … is eliminate yourself from the pool of candidates.

(and I would say the same thing about someone who keeps their bluetooth earphone on… or pulls out a smoke in the middle of the interview room … all are in the same category of “odious social habits”)

(not that I’d eliminate a smoker in general, just one who is so socially clueless, or socially selfish, that they’d do it during the interview, in a closed room. And, yes, I think that’s a perfectly valid comparison to the bluetooth headset and google glass)